


Summer Soldier, Winter Soldier

by Yeomanrand



Series: Summer Soldier/Winter Soldier [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America: The First Avenger - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Amnesia, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Implied Relationship, M/M, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Polyamory, Present Tense, Separations, Soul Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Torture, hurt with some comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5758540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most people understand right away when the old magic marks the skin where they've touched their soul-mate. But the lives Steve and Bucky are destined to lead are so tangled in time, memory, enmity, and the other lives they've touched...maybe it's not a surprise that the signs are not so clear to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Summer Soldier

Ten-year-old James Buchanan Barnes doesn't know a lot of things, but he knows heart-brands are stupid and he's never going to have one. Never ever. Stuff that happens only between girls and boys ain't for him, no sir. 'Sides, he's got Stevie, and Stevie's got him, and even their moms agree about their friendship being a good thing.

Well. When they don't come home sporting matching black eyes because Stevie couldn't not pick a fight with the bully picking on Jess from his class and Bucky had to step in and help him, just a little. Even if Stevie had the guy on the ropes, a well-placed slushball never went amiss.

* * * * *

Fifteen-year-old Bucky hasn't much changed his mind, maybe even especially watching his classmates lose theirs at sunburns and pen smudges that _might just be_ their heart-brands. Trying to figure out who had touched them there, and saddening when skin peeled and hands were washed. He doesn't bother pointing out what they should already know; _how_ it happens may be a mystery but they've even mentioned the surge in health ed. If a couple of them had got their brands, they'd feel some sense of the old earth power flowing through their bodies. The kindling fire, his ma calls it.

He scoffs whenever he's asked. Anybody with sense knows the old earth magic doesn't stir itself for puppy love. And anyway: girls are fun but he doesn't date much. He has his hands full with his sister Becca, and keeping up with Stevie, who still insists on taking on guys twice his size for what Bucky sometimes swears is the fun of it. No matter how often Stevie swears he doesn't pick fights for nothing.

(Steve Rogers never picked fights for nothing, and James Barnes knew it right down to his bones and it scared him bad, some nights when they were curled up on separate couch cushions on the floor and reading comics or just jawing and he could hear the wheeze in Stevie's breathing.)

They've had a long day walking along the boardwalk at the Island, and Bucky contemplates the inside of his right arm and tries to figure out how he'd managed to sunburn himself _there_ while they talk about the spring dance coming up.

"Sandra Blessup is a doll, Stevie. You should ask 'er."

Steve shakes his head. 

"She won't want to go out with me, Bucky," he says, his voice a whole lot sturdier than his frame.

"Bullshit," Bucky says, soft even though his ma and the girls went to bed hours ago. "I told her about you when I asked Cynthia."

Cynthia's the prettiest girl in school, and she's just broke up with the meathead captain of the football team. Bucky knows he'll be lucky to end up with her on his arm for half the night but he's okay with that as long as it's the _right_ half of the night. Sandra's her friend, and Bucky likes double-dating with Steve. Someday some dame was going to figure out what a catch his friend is, and he maybe feels a little squidgey in the stomach at the thought but hey. Steve deserves good things.

Steve shrugs and wraps the blanket around himself even tighter. "I'm fine, Bucky. You go and enjoy yourself."

"Jesus, Stevie, it's sweltering in here, you really need that blanket? You got sunburn on your shoulders."

"I'm not wearing a hat, next time, Bucky, forget it. Even Ma can't sell me on that one."

"Don't come cryin' ta me when you're sore with it, then," Bucky says with a laugh, and shifts onto his back.

Bucky's folks never woke the old magic, and they did okay. And Stevie's folks' marks hadn't come in until just before his dad went off to war. Like it took the old magic just as long as people to realize, sometimes.

* * * * *

Twenty-five-year-old Bucky–now sometimes Buck but never James–is focused so hard on getting the curve of their drawing model's backside right that it takes him a minute to realize Steve's gone stock still. He picks his head up, realizes everyone in the classroom is focused on the radio. Even the model has stopped shivering in the unheated room.

So he stops to listen, too.

_No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people, in their righteous might, will win through to absolute victory._

His breath catches in his throat; Steve looks at him for a minute like he's afraid _Bucky_ is going to have an asthma attack. Shit, Bucky thinks. _Shit._

The president stops speaking, and the reporters start, and Bucky takes a breath and runs through the plans he'd started to organize when the war started in Europe. To protect Becca and their Ma. To protect Stevie. Because he knows no army'll take Steve, and they're fools if they don't, but no army will with his asthma and the rest of his ailments but Bucky —

Bucky's going to have to go. He won't enlist, because Steve and Becca and Ma, but they'll call him up and he's no pacifist and no coward. But there's some stuff he's got to do first.

The teacher excuses them, and Bucky catches Steve's arm when he's almost got his kit packed up. He can feel the heat radiating off Steve's body through the three sweaters Steve's wearing as well as his own gloves.

"I know what you're thinking, Steve," he says, when Steve looks up at him.

Steve looks up at him, stubborn determination in the line of his jaw and the set of his shoulders. The tension in his frame under Bucky's hand.

"I have to try, Buck."

"I know. I want you to come someplace with me first."

And there's the look that always punches Bucky right in the gut, those big blue eyes looking up at him through long lashes and a twist to Steve's lips that manages to suggest suspicion and trust all at once. 

He's going where the war takes him and he _knows_ that—but he also knows he's going to make them call his number because this is where he belongs. And he can't let Stevie know for nothing, because Stevie's going to throw his whole big heart into doing what's right. Just like he always does.

He lets go of Steve's arm with a show of reluctance, then bumps Steve's shoulder with his bicep.

"Punk," he says.

"Jerk," Steve answers.

Despite the grim feeling in the air around them, Bucky can't help but smile. Steve does, too. Bucky folds up the moment and tucks it in next to his heart and takes Steve down to Goldie's Gym like he believes having some skills in place will help Steve pass the enlistment physical.

* * * * *

Bucky isn't surprised when Steve doesn't show up with Becca and their Ma to see him off. They'd said their goodbyes at the Stark Expo, after all, and Steve's cheek had been warm enough against Bucky's jaw he's less worried what's going to happen to him than he is Steve has gone and caught something again.

* * * * *

Months older, Bucky perches in a tree, watching and waiting for the right moment to shoot the driver of the troop carrier coming toward them. Dugan has his six, and he's grumbling around his unlit cigar. Bucky ignores him, calmly takes his shot and then covers their fireteam while they kill or capture the survivors.

"It's good for you to be out of the fray sometimes," he says, dropping lightly to the forest floor. Dugan snorts.

"Didn't come over here to sit back and watch your pasty ass," he says. "Speaking of asses, when you going to tell us about her?"

"Her who?"

"Her," Dugan answers, pushing at the line of Bucky's jaw beneath a day's worth of definitely non-regulation stubble with his gloved fingers. Bucky bats his hand away.

"Nothing to tell. Ain't no her."

"I may be hotheaded but I ain't _stupid_ ," Dugan tells him. Jones, holding the perimeter, is close enough to hear and he snorts.

"Get 'em in line and let's get back to base," Bucky says, and Dugan shoots him a look says the topic isn't closed as far as he's concerned. Bucky rolls his eyes at him and they scoop up their captives; Jones takes command of the truck because there's no sense leaving resources behind.

* * * * *

For a wonder, he doesn't get cornered about the fading line on his jaw when they're in quarters or in mess or where the rest of the patrol can hear them. They're on a down between missions and the sky is sheeting rain; Dugan's cigar is ruined.

"Gettin' back to where we were," he says, casually, "I ain't _stupid_ , Buck. I know a lover's mark when I see one."

"Guess you are, on account of it ain't."

Dugan gives him a look that would have Bucky worrying a fight was going to break out around them if they were in a bar.

"I'm serious, _Aloysius_ ," he says, sharp as a rifle retort.

Dugan leans back, a flash of teeth showing beneath his moustache. "Sure, _James_ , and I'm a leprechaun."

"You could be."

"Well, I'm not."

Bucky shrugs. "What do you want me to say? There ain't no 'her', Dum Dum." It's as flat as he can make it, as serious, and Dugan backs off just a little bit. But he doesn't quit, though his voice drops low enough Bucky has to strain over the water running off canvas.

"Fella, then?"

"What? No," Bucky answers, brain coming to a screeching halt.

Dugan shrugs, looking thoughtful. "I got a cousin, pretty thing a few years older than me. Charity Grace." He catches Bucky's look, shrugs. "Her ma's plenty of fun at parties."

The comment is dryer than they've been in three days.

"Anyway, Gracie, she's got a bonded of her own. Two of them, actually, and I've seen marks on both fellas I kinda doubt Gracie put there. Her hands aren't as big as mine, for one thing."

Bucky closes his mouth with a snap. "How does that even work? Three of 'em?"

"Hell if I know. And I know Gracie told my aunt the boys are platonic 'cause of how they both feel about her but I got my doubts."

Bucky shakes his head; can't reconcile what he's hearing either with the man talking to him or what he'd been taught growing up. Platonic? Two fellas?

"I'm just saying," Dugan finishes. "I wouldn't care. I doubt the rest of the patrol would, either."

Bucky makes a sharp cutting motion with his hand, though. "No gal, no fella, no nothing," he says. "No fire from a touch, no bolt from out of the blue, no _nothing_. So unless _you're_ trying to tell me something..."

Dugan's easy laugh is like lightning through the rain.

"Not me. Just figured somebody with sense needed to tell you to write home before your brand faded away completely. And, I was wrong. Sorry, Buck."

"Yeah, yeah. And don't bother telling me you'll butt out next time because we both know better."

* * * * *

Bucky wakes up in a dark tent, middle of the night, heart racing. He doesn't remember dreaming, pauses and listens for gunfire or out-of-place footfalls or combat. Silence around him except for Jones' snoring; he slips into his pants and boots, quiet and almost still, as though he were heading to pick a roost, and slips just outside the flaps. Crouches down like he's lighting up a cig, shielding the tip, and shakes with the force of whatever woke him.

There's nothing but their camp around him, no reason for his nervous system to have gone on high alert. Except something's still bothering him, a faint prickling of the nerves under his skin and he cannot be having a breakdown because his patrol needs him. So he's not. 

He starts to straighten up, planning to go back to his cot; there's still another couple hours before reveille and he can use the sleep. 

And sinks back down again when indescribable fire runs down his jaw. He's not in pain, but the feeling is so intense his breathing goes wild and shallow. There's nothing to hang onto but the dirt and so he does, grounding himself in compacted soil under palms and nails until the feeling passes. He can feel his heart pounding in his chest and along his jaw and swears there's another confusion in his brain besides his own.

As suddenly as the sensations came, they're gone, leaving him breathing hard as he would after a five-mile run in full gear. He draws himself to his feet, brushes his hands off on his pants.

He sure as hell felt _that_. He has no doubt the half-faded mark on his jaw is back to the same deep red he'd seen on the morning he'd shipped out. 

And he has absolutely _no goddamned clue_ what just happened.

* * * * *

Fortunately, Dugan keeps his word, and his mouth shut, and Bucky doesn't have to try to explain the unexplainable.

* * * * *

Bucky's world goes to hell in Italy, just outside Azzano. Their unit gets jumped by Germans who are not where they're supposed to be; a crater provides some cover but they all know it's not going to be enough. Their radioman was among the first casualties, and his radio with him.

Bucky shares a look with Dugan. There's at least three of their enemy for each of them. Under ordinary circumstances he'd crack wise about the odds almost being fair but they're running low on ammo and with no reinforcements on their way or even possible, well. They'll go down fighting, and Dugan's ridiculous bowler will go down with them.

He pivots; takes a quick glance over the lip of the crater for targets.

Something loud, destructive, and blue explodes in the middle of the Germans. Vehicles and men go flying, and Bucky ducks back behind cover.

"What the _hell_ was _that_?"

He looks at Dugan again. "A tank. I don't know whose."

They both flinch at another explosion, and a flare of blue sails over their heads, briefly lighting the crater as it passes. Bucky shouts " _incoming, get down_!" but half the 107th isn't as alert. They've barely had time to react when another wave of Germans swing over the lip of their shelter — Bucky shoots two and hears other bodies falling around him but the third man — a thick-necked, blue-eyed German wearing his own sergeant's stripes — makes him hesitate when he gives Bucky a wild-eyed look and turns back around to start shooting at the tank and its phalanx of masked soldiers.

"Enemy of my enemy," he mutters.

"Sure as hell ain't our friends," Dugan answers, somehow having heard him.

Bucky looks over the lip; drops one man with each of his remaining bullets. Pulls the knife from his hip sheath.

The edge of the crater explodes. By the time Bucky recovers sense enough to act, there's a soldier with a gun pointed at Dugan's head. There are _many_ soldiers. One per survivor, he guesses, confirmed when the muzzle of a rifle presses between his shoulders, and the packs on all their backs have the same feral blue glow as whatever ammo the tank had been firing.

He watches them closely, folds his hands behind his head. These men do not wear the swastika, but rather a red patch with a black and white octopus. He doesn't know who they represent. He's sure they're all going to regret finding out.

* * * * *

He's right.

Colonel Lohmer, the guy in charge, takes an instant hate to Bucky once they're marched into something that looks like a hybrid munitions factory and matinee mad scientist's lair. Three days pass before the bastard does anything about it, days where they're shown to workstations and told what to do and the first two guys from the 107th who refuse are vaporized by bolts of blue and the remainder of the Germans who had pinned them down miles away get the same treatment.

Point taken. Bucky manages to get Dugan's and Jones' eyes, anyway, gives them tiny signals to stand down. They're none of them happy about it, but when day three rolls around and another guy loses his everything to the gut-wrenching weapons because he'd deliberately sabotaged everything that went through his station, well. 

The soldiers sharing their circular cage, not enough room for all of them to lay down unless they're overlapping each other, they're decent enough guys. Not all Americans, but there are no Germans amongst them. Bucky doesn't know what to make of that but he's sure there's no accident in it. They're on slightly better than starvation rations, but they all know the plan is to work them to death.

Their guard knocks Dugan's hat off, again, but lets him pick it up again and Bucky mentally marks him to die first, when rescue or a chance to escape comes. And steps on Dugan's foot when he starts to mouth off.

Because they're all already wearing bruises. Because the hat's an excuse. Because bullies will do what bullies do.

He's not surprised when he gets pulled out of the line-up to go back _in_ the cage. He's been waiting, in fact, but not for a fight. He's not Stevie going to fight the odds and the bullies and he gets worked over by Colonel Lohmer but he doesn't break and he doesn't give him anything other than a few tears and a soft whine.

He hears the low grumble when he's deposited back amongst the others but he manages to drag himself up sitting (hands helping — Monty, he thinks, and Dugan of course).

"Had worse," he says, then coughs and spits blood on the pristine floor outside the bars.

" _Je sais un peu de médecin_ ," Dernier says, and Jones doesn't bother translating; the other men move aside so he can get to Bucky. He shakes his head, but doesn't stop the other man looking him over, either.

" _Merci_ ," he says, after; about the only word of French he knows.

Later, when most of the others are sleeping and he and Dugan have their heads together, he says, "I think they've got a scapegoat per cage. I got blamed for the damage on the line today. Told to see you shape up. Just an excuse, though."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather blow the whole place up with us in it," Dugan snarls, "than let some filthy kraut whale on you."

Bucky shakes his head at him, holds his gaze. "Can't. One of us has to survive. Find our way out. Get this intel back before whoever this is drops in on the rest of the war."

Dugan's mouth draws into a grim line and he nods.

* * * * *

They lose track of the days, quickly, because their captors change rising and feeding and working time as they please. Once, Bucky sees a tall man wearing what looks a lot like an SS uniform, only with the octopus, striding along the catwalks; he thinks he hears the guards nearby shout "heil hydra" when he walks by. He files this information away along with everything else he's learned.

Useless. Pointless. But a self-assigned mission is better than quietly going stir-crazy. Or worse.

(He tries not to think about Stevie in this dark place.)

Jones and Dugan are the only ones officially his responsibility but they're all in this together. Bucky gets pulled aside more than anyone else: scapegoat, he knows, they're trying to keep everyone else in line by picking on him and fine. But he also sees the broken huddle when he comes back spitting blood once again and he should say something to stop whatever they're planning but he's had no ideas of his own and the little rebellions will keep them together and sane. He trusts them to keep any more wrath from their overseers off their heads.

Or to have found some crazy way to get them out of Hell.

* * * * *

They never discuss Lohmer's death. They can't. He's not sure what they did, but he knows the man hadn't fallen into the machinery by _accident_.

No matter how his death looked to the rest of their guards.

Bucky keeps his head down and keeps working on the massive parts and wishes he had the mechanical smarts — like maybe he could borrow Howard Stark's brain — to get some subtle sabotage of his own in. He's not sure what they're building, but he's sure it won't be good for the Allies. And probably the Axis.

He also knows he's running out of time to do anything, because he can feel a faint crackling in his lungs every time he inhales. He saw Stevie through enough bouts of pneumonia.

* * * * *

He fools them for a day, with an assist from Dugan, but on the second he has to use the bars to pull himself up. 

Dugan, Jones, and Monty try to help shelter him, but he's not surprised when two soldiers flank him and half-drag him off the line. He can't get a full breath or get his head together enough to fight effectively, even once it's just the three of them in a hallway. Which isn't to say he gives up — he struggles, even manages to get a good shot in on one of their shins but he's not unlike Stevie fighting guys twice his size.

They throw him onto some kind of padded medical table and he gets another half-hearted shot in, nearly breaks his fingers on the guard's helmet. They strap him down tight, arms pinned to his sides, and leave the room.

He struggles to swallow. Feels warm heat along the side of his jaw, thinks of the half-forgotten mark like a fever dream. Guiltily worries what his death'll do to his mate.

He hears regimented footfalls out in the hallway, as from a distance, though someone in the group is out of step. Strains against the bands across his chest, thighs, and ankles; does nothing but precipitate a coughing jag he can ill-afford. Though his mind's clearer when he stops and sucks in a pain-soaked lungful of air.

"Welcome to the infirmary, Sergeant Barnes. I am Dr. Arnim Zola, and I shall be getting to know you quite well."

The English is heavily accented with what sounds like German; Bucky resolutely doesn't turn his head to look at the speaker though he can see movement in his peripheral vision.

"Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8."

"Ah, yes." A small, balding man with a very round face and equally round glasses leans into view. "Americans. Always so certain we want information."

He steps down, moves carefully around the room. Bucky can hear the rattle of glass, metal-on-metal and he grits his teeth. Something unfamiliar slides into his peripheral vision, metallic and dark.

"Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8."

The man reappears at his side. "Although the instinct is not _entirely_ out of place, in this case. Repeat whatever you like, Sergeant Barnes."

A needle slides into his arm; he can't see what substance just entered his veins but it burns through his bloodstream like his lungs are burning until he wants to howl but he can't get in enough air. The pain recedes enough for the tension to ebb from his limbs, leaving him gasping. The madman speaks again.

"Assuming you survive until morning, we shall collect data on just what it takes to unmake that memory. And all the other extraneous detritus of 'your' life."

Clammy fingers tap the mark on his jaw; dazed as he is he jerks his head away. 

"Especially this."

* * * * *

Name, rank, serial number. Another series of injections. Bucky's breathing eased some time after the second series of shots, to Dr. Zola's deep interest; there'd been a blood draw after he'd realized and smug satisfaction when he'd muttered over his notes, the scratch of pen on paper carrying to Bucky through the quiet laboratory.

Name, rank, serial number. Another visit from Zola. Another injection. This time, followed by the metal frame being wrapped around Bucky's head. Not so closely that he doesn't feel the electricity building before it tears through him, through his mind, whiting everything out to blackness.

Name, rank, serial. More injections. More electricity, from closer this time; Barnes' neck muscles stiffen involuntarily, throwing his forehead and cheek into the device. His jaw's so tight before the white goes to black he discovers he's cracked a tooth when he comes to; he tries to hide the damage from Zola because at least that pain's clean.

...ame, ran…, serial. 

He can feel himself slipping. 

Namer…ial.

Thinks, in an unexpected moment of clarity, _I'm sorry, Stevie_. But he isn't entirely sure why.

Name. Rank. Seri…

"Bucky?"

He's...no. That voice…Explosions? He opens his eyes, sees only the ceiling. The frame has been moved. A tearing sound; the force of the motion against the table shakes his head over.

"Is...is…?"

"Yeah, it's me. It's Steve."

He feels himself smile, possibly for the first time in his life. "Steve. Steve."

Of course, this can't be Steve; for one thing, Steve wouldn't have the strength to haul Bucky thoughtlessly off the table and to his feet. There's a faded grey mark along Steve's cheek, remnants of a football player's eyeblack misplaced, and he's taller than Bucky. Who'd think he was hallucinating, except hallucinations probably wouldn't clap a warm leather-clad hand along the side of his face.

"I thought you were dead."

"I thought you were smaller." 

Stevie was smaller; memories rush back in waves, same as they'd receded behind the white blackness of electricity; mind under Bucky's control again like his limbs when Steve lets go for a moment so he can transfer Bucky's arm over his shoulders. Steve stares for a moment at something on the wall, but starts moving out when the floor shakes with the force of the next explosion. 

* * * * *

Bucky's walking easily on his own when he and Steve meet up with the other survivors — more of them than he'd expected, even after he'd seen the carnage left behind. 

The tank explains a lot.

A lot of guys are still wearing their 107th DUIs, and Bucky's low spirits come up a bit when Jones waves at him from the tank before Dugan, Monty, Dernier, and a probably-Japanese guy who introduces himself as Jim and who Dugan insists on calling 'Fresno' gather around him. He feels himself tense up — Steve's one thing, but he doesn't want anybody else's hands on him right now.

Maybe not ever, to be honest. Doesn't want to consider what it might mean that he could barely hold himself up, or string two thoughts together, when Steve first found him and now he's got aches and pains but he thinks he should have a lot more. He can't remember, literally, the last time he ate. But he can't have his mind chasing its tail about that or Zola getting away or the Red Skull or about the changes in Steve. 

"So how far we got to go to get this bunch of mutts back home?" He thinks he might have known where they started out and where they ended up, and he's pretty sure they're in the Alps just because he's got eyes, but those brain cells got damn fried because he can't remember.

"About thirty miles," Steve says, like walking that far is nothing. Bucky knows from looking at the new him it probably is for Steve, and he both feels ill and doesn't know if he wants to punch him for assuming they can get everyone back or pull him in for one of those quick, close hugs they shared as kids. 

Since now's not the time for either, he starts moving through the line and helping figure out who's injured enough to need a lift on one of their captured vehicles; greets the soldiers who know him. Makes sure the dirt-normal rifle he shouldered on their way out of the Hydra camp stays in place (he knows Dernier likes the shiny Hydra weapon but the blue glow churns Bucky's stomach something fierce). Gets everyone ready to go, and then comes back up to stand on Steve's left.

"Think they're all ready, Cap."

Steve nods at him. "Move out."

Bucky sends the call down the line, hears himself echoed by Dugan and voices he can't quite place and they move out through the rough terrain.

Steve keeps looking at him as they march, like he's got something he wants to say, but Bucky doesn't meet his gaze.

* * * * *

Steve offers to turn himself in but Bucky knows even as he says the words that Phillips can't discipline him without breaking morale. Steve looks confused and lost for a moment and Bucky acts without thinking.

"Let's hear it for Captain America!"

The other men cheer and Bucky plasters a smile on his face but he couldn't give a damn about Captain America and he wants to strangle Steve for letting someone experiment on him but he's so damn _glad_ people can finally see what he's known about Steve Rogers since they met. The kind of heart he has, the bravery that comes to him easier than breathing. So Bucky smiles broadly, gives Stevie a thumbs up with his eyebrows and as soon as Steve turns away the fake happy expression slides off his face. 

He can't sustain the brightness.

Bucky knows the medics are going to want to check him out, knows there'll be a debrief. Knows he needs to tell them everything that happened to him. And he _can't_ , because the truth will get him shipped back stateside for more rounds of "tests" and he'll be damned if he'll be someone else's lab experiment but even more importantly he has to stay with Steve. Somebody needs to have the punk's six, no matter how much closer to invincible he thinks he is these days.

* * * * *

Bucky endures medical, which includes a TB test and a blood stick. He tells his superiors what they need to know about the goings on in the factory and the lab. Which doesn't include his being a lab _rat_. Though he does tell them what he'd learned about Zola; that man's a menace, and the man with the weird red skull-face even more so. He doesn't think they're loyal to anyone but themselves and he says so.

It's a hell of a grilling. He worries about Steve the whole time.

* * * * *

All of Hydra's prisoners lost weight, but Bucky feels like his uniforms are even more ill-fitting than most. He reminds himself he was sick, too, as well as starved and overworked, and strapped to a table unable to move except to use the shitter for he doesn't know how long. Can't have been very; it was October in Azzano and the girly calendar tacked up behind the bar is set to November. A little less than a month.

He downs his shot, signals for another. He can hear Dugan laughing in the public room, bright and cheerful and the sound sinks into him as though he were a pit. Same as the alcohol; he's been drinking since they got settled at this pub; they're officially 'on leave,' for the moment. The Army giving them R&R in the truest sense of both words and he's glad the rest of 'em are taking advantage.

Steve is in meetings with Agent Carter and Colonel Phillips and other higher-ups, the line on his jaw has faded to the barest pink, and Bucky can't get drunk.

Part of him knows he should be in the room with the others but it's too bright and there are too many people and he'd either drag them all down with him or have to wear himself out to give them what they need. To be the person they like, the one they greeted with friendly words out there in the mountains.

He downs another shot, signals again. Dugan's voice rises and falls among the conversations in the other room and Bucky wonders which story he's decided to trot out over beers to bring their little unit of survivors closer. He traces abstract patterns with his fingertips on the bar, leaving nothing behind.

* * * * *

"Maybe she's got a friend," Steve says, the two of them settling back down at the bar. Bucky looks at him and chuckles but the little bubble of happiness fades quickly. Fades like the mark he can't see on Steve's cheek is faded, the mark on his own jaw.

"You really going to sit here and drink with me and let the Woman in Red get away?" he asks, "Steven Grant Rogers, I swear to God…"

Steve, blushing, looks over at him; Bucky focuses back in on his beer.

"Agent Carter's just a friend," he says, and Bucky favors him with his Seriously-Stevie-Do-You-Believe-The-Crap-That-Comes-Out-Your-Mouth look.

"Really, Buck."

The guys playing darts finish their game and file out of the room, laughing and slapping shoulders, leaving Steve and Bucky sitting alone at the bar. Bucky finishes his beer and despite the hopelessness still gnawing at his gut signals for another. Looks at Steve out the corner of his eye.

Steve's shifted on the stool so he's facing Bucky instead of giving him his profile; Bucky's eyes catch on the mark on his cheek and he makes himself look away. 

"She kind of told me I needed to talk to you. After the serum," Steve says hesitantly; Bucky registers the gesture down Steve's own body. Turns his head and looks fully into Steve's face. "When she saw…"

His fingers drift up to his cheekbone but he doesn't touch the mark; Bucky's fingers twitch because he'd like to but he can't. Much too late, for one thing; if they were going to explore each other's marks they should have when they first manifested. Only they hadn't known. 

Bucky hadn't known. Had Steve?

He tilts his head, looks up into Steve's solemn face, tries to read what he's seeing there. So much history still hides behind the hazy crackle of electricity, though, the white glow down his veins, and Bucky looks away again.

"I know why all the metaphors are fire, now," he says, downing his beer, and Steve nods. 

"Yeah," he says, and this time he signals for another round. "So do I. Could feel it even over the serum Howard and Erskine were pumping into me."

Bucky shakes his head, a little, grateful for the beer to use to force back bile. He _knows_ why, knows there's no point arguing over things already done. And then his brain hiccups to a slightly safer subject. 

"Wait. Howard? Howard _Stark_?"

Steve ducks his head, gives a little sideways grin. "Thought I told you he and Peggy flew me out to find you."

Bucky can't help a laugh, though he sobers, quickly.

"Peggy, huh?"

Steve sighs. "Buck."

Bucky shakes his head. 

"Nah, Stevie, it's good. She's good." And she _is_ ; Bucky wouldn't have stepped in to speak for his tongue-tied friend if he hadn't seen the crackle of _something_ between them, in the way they looked at each other. Steve always had looked out for himself, not always well, but it made perfect sense to Bucky that he'd finally find a woman who saw how much he was worth on his own, too. And he'd bet his entire pension she'd seen it before...well. Before.

_...See just what it takes to unmake that memory. Especially this._

He clenches his jaw, trying not to shiver at the memory of soft clammy fingertips. If he's right, the mark Zola had kept such meticulous notes on will fade without jolts of electricity or injections of God-knows-what. Things will go back to being the way they should be, him and Steve looking out for each other the way they always have just on the battlefield instead of the back alleys and...Steve's saying something.

Steve's saying his name.

"Buck?" Shit, he's really worried.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm all right. You're a punk."

"Jerk," Steve answers him, reflexively, and for a heartbeat they're back on the sidewalk in Brooklyn. Just kids, meeting for the first time, a warm flare of affection and humor when their eyes meet. And Bucky knows, without a doubt, the mark on Stevie is his; and the mark on him is Stevie's. Just held back until Steve's body could handle the strength of the kindling fire, of the old magic.

Feels an echo of that lonely midnight fire ripple through his bones; starts to reach out to grip Steve's arm. To see what will happen. Wanting something he swore he'd never want. Stevie leans toward him, maybe feeling the same.

And then Dugan roars with laughter in the other room and the moment pops like a soap bubble. Bucky settles back on his stool, lets his hand come to rest on the bar top. Gives Steve a crooked smile.

"Guess we ought to get that group of reprobates back to barracks before curfew," he says with a little shrug. Trying to keep his feet out of a minefield he doesn't know how to negotiate. "Oh-eight-hundred, like the lady said."

Stevie lets him get away with it but–just like the conversation with Dugan–Bucky knows he's only bought himself a reprieve.

* * * * *

It's easier once they're on the move again. Tracking and destroying bases. Bucky settling back in as the team's sniper, following Stevie the way he always has, trying to keep him out of trouble because that hasn't changed, either. Neither of them mention the bunker, the table, the bar, or their marks.

Marks which have stabilized, but not returned to their original intensity. Bucky doesn't think he's surprised. Truth be told, he tries not to think too much about them at all. And Steve doesn't try to corner him about them, which he's fine with.

There's a war on, and Hydra's a worse threat. They none of them can afford distractions.

Which, he admits to himself later, is exactly how Dugan manages to blindside him while they're traveling from the last Hydra base to the next. Most of the Howlies are sleeping; Steve's toward the front of the truck pouring over his maps with Peggy, and Bucky's too wired to sleep. Fortunately, he's not so wired as to take a swing when Dugan settles in next to him at the back, bowler still on his head and chewed cigar stub tucked in the corner of his mouth.

"Still ain't stupid," he says.

"We're not talking about this," Bucky warns him.

"So, don't talk. Not me you need to talk to, anyway." Dugan shifts, pushing himself more securely against the truck bed against the jolting underneath them. "But I'll tell you right now if you _don't_ , Jim and Dernier may do something rash."

Bucky doesn't comment aloud, but his lips thin and his fingertips tap against his pants leg.

"Dynamite was mentioned." But Dugan doesn't smile any more than Bucky does. "I hate this shit. I don't know what they did to you in that place, Buck, but you're different than you were. And you don't got to talk to anyone about that but you do got to talk to Cap about this bullshit tension between you."

He makes a small gesture with his hands and grimaces when they hit a bump and Jim starts to wake. They both wait until the Nisei soldier has settled with a grumble and resumes snoring.

Bucky turns his head to stare at the canvas covering the tail gate. Scrubs his hands over his face.

"Don't make me have this conversation with you again. Or make me have it with him at all. _We've_ got to know that _you_ trust each other. Got me?"

Bucky takes his hands down and looks back at Dugan, surprised. "I trust him."

Dugan shifts his weight, moves to a crouch and to give Bucky his space, but turns back for the last word.

"Then for God's sake stop pussyfooting around."

* * * * *

They've been granted an overnight leave (Read: ordered to take) while the brass goes over the intel brought back from the latest Hydra base. The next one is the last one on Stevie's mental map, and if they haven't sorted the Hydra HQ location by then Bucky doesn't want to think what might happen. What Hydra's got planned.

He's feeling stretched entirely too thin lately, but Stevie's thriving and that's keeping Bucky going. He's still having nightmares and he can't remember the last full night's sleep he got. The killing doesn't bother him: they're soldiers, this is war, part of the job. But at night, in the dark, over and over again, Stevie dies on Zola's table while Bucky's fighting to get to him, or Bucky's strapped back down with electricity jolting through his body. Last night's dream was the worst yet: Agent Carter showed up, ready to help despite the rattling wheeze in Bucky's chest, only she took a head shot before they even breached the base and he woke up with Zola's nasal laughter in his head.

"Buck?"

He flinches, doesn't startle back too far, gives Stevie a grin even he can feel is too broad and too brittle.

"Hey, Stevie," he says, and then stalls out. Steve, being Steve, doesn't say anything, just looks at him patiently. A little bit sadly; not as bad as when Mrs. Rogers had died but there's some of that there. Bucky's fingers twitch toward the mark on his cheek but he holds himself back, which means the first thought that manages to get traction is the first thing out of his mouth.

"If we'd known, when your ma died, would you have taken me up on my offer?"

Steve's eyes get a little rounder, and he tugs Bucky through the nearest door. Which turns out to belong to a tiny little room smelling faintly of chemicals and empty except for a cracked bucket tossed in the corner. Bucky can't think enough to smart off, at first, because Steve's between him and the door and he's crowding Bucky, hands on the wall to either side of him but not actually touching, broad chest so close Bucky can feel the way his body radiates heat. Bucky's heart leaps and he doesn't know if it's terror or how intensely _interested_ he is in what Steve's going to do next.

Bucky makes fists of his hands flat against the wall but waits to find out. Steve's bangs brush his forehead, stormy blue eyes flickering between Bucky's eyes and his lips; some ineffable lightness bubbles up past the pit inside him.

"I'm not kissing you for the first time in a deactivated _broom closet_ , Stevie. I'm betting Agent Carter wouldn't, neither. Both of us are classier dames than that." 

Steve paused; his face did something complicated and then _he_ laughed. And also stepped back a bit to lean against the wall next to Bucky, who shivered.

"You've never been a classy dame in your _life_ , Buck."

"Says you. Punk."

"Jerk."

Bucky laughs for another moment, but sobers; Steve's right there with him.

"Where were you, when I almost walked into you back there?"

Bucky shakes his head, looks down at the floor. "Zola's...I don't want to talk about that. Ever."

"But you wanted to talk about something?"

"Yeah." Actually, no, but he knows he can't say so. "Answer my question?"

Steve glances at Bucky, then shakes his head. "Probably not, Buck. Til the end of the line with you, too, but I needed...I needed to show myself I could go it alone. Even though I didn't have to."

Bucky nods, lets himself sink down into a squat.

"When did you know?" He figures Stevie has to know what he's asking, but points at his own jaw anyway.

Steve follows him down, shakes his head a bit. "I wondered a couple of times, when we were kids. But I wasn't sure, not until Erskine's serum and Howard's Vita-rays."

"Mid-March, right?"

"Yeah." Steve looks at him, surprise in the raise of his eyebrows and quirk of his mouth.

"Something woke me out of a sound sleep, and then _bam_. All that fire with nowhere to go." He snorts, softly. "You'd felt warm to me outside the recruiting center, but I figured you'd just gone and got yourself sick again."

Steve grimaces. "I had the same thought about you. Getting sick, I mean."

Bucky sighs. "I don't know if we're a pair of fools, or if the universe is just cruel."

"Well, you did bring all the stupid here with you."

Bucky gives a little half-laugh, bumps Stevie's left shoulder with his right. He means it to be a quick, joshing touch but the shiver up his spine warns him it's going to be more even before warmth spirals up his wrist from the ground to the point where they touch. Despite the layers of uniform between them. His mouth drops open, and Steve looks similarly addled.

It's the same white-hot but painless intensity of feeling he'd had alone back in March, and he doesn't want to move away from Steve. Doesn't think he could, not until the old magic lets go of them with a warm brush like the tip of a cat's tail across Bucky's arm.

"That—Buck," Steve says, haltingly. 

Bucky doesn't bother trying to get his rattled brain back in order, just peels off his shirts to look at the mark. Steve's fingers reach out and brush it, sending another little shudder down Bucky's spine. It's blue, the same blue in Steve's ridiculous uniform, the one he'd been wearing when he saved Bucky's life, and oval-ish.

"Shirt off, Stevie," he orders, probing the edges himself; Steve's slower to undress; his mark is bright red but otherwise positioned and shaped almost exactly the same as Bucky's. Neither of them does more than touch and trace with light fingers, examining their mates' as well as their own, until Bucky shivers.

"We're still in the broom closet," he says, reaching reluctantly for his undershirt.

"And at war," Steve agrees, reaching for his own. Bucky catches four small brown dots at the bottom of Steve's left pectoral, and catches his arm before he can cover up.

"Agent Carter?" Bucky asks. He thinks he should be jealous but finds he's not—as long as those are her marks.

"Yeah. She touched me, right after the change. Just her fingertips." He finishes pulling down his shirt. "I'm surprised they're not more faded, though."

"Why? On account of me? Of this?" Bucky gestures at his upper arm. "No way, Stevie. Always said you needed to find a girl and settle down. Which you were _supposed_ to be doing while I was over here getting shot at."

"Didn't we have this argument?" Steve asks. They're both almost fully dressed again, though Bucky reaches out and smooths Steve's hair down. "You really don't mind about Peggy?"

"She mind about me?"

Steve shakes his head, slowly, gives Bucky a hand up off the floor. "I told you back in London. She said I had to go talk to you."

"I remember you saying." He sets his index finger right in the center of Steve's chest. "Still and always with you to the end of the line. You don't got to go it alone, and if you won't listen to me then listen to the old magic. Punk."

Steve's hand closes briefly around his. "Jerk."

It's not a lot to keep Bucky going. Only his whole world.


	2. Entr'acte: Steve Rogers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"Bucky's still alive, Peggy."_

Steve hears Peggy come up behind and beside him—on his right—but doesn't turn to look at her before he speaks.

"Bucky's still alive, Peggy."

"Steve, he —"

Frustrated, he rips the glove off his left hand, shows her the brilliantly red-blue-purple Mark bleeding from his fingertips halfway down his wrist. 

"It _tried_ ," he says, exhausted from crying, exhausted from grieving, from trying to explain and not being heard. "We needed half an inch, maybe, but we just didn't have it before the bar gave way. And the old magic, whatever it is, it tried to give that to us. We weren't even touching. We had on gloves. I shouldn't have this.

"But I do, and it's not fading or scarring so he's _alive_. And it's not the serum, no matter what Col. Phillips thinks."

She looks back at him, gives a sharp nod.

"Then I'll go looking for him in those mountains myself, while you do what you have to do to stop the Red Skull. Just...a lot of that ground is hostile."

"I know. And we both know it can't be you. Just...send somebody."

She nods. Briefly sets her hand on his shoulder.

It doesn't kindle either of them. But the touch is enough.

*****

"Peggy...I'm going to need a rain check on that dance."

"All right. A week next Saturday at The Stork Club."

"You've got it."

"Eight o'clock on the dot. Don't you dare be late. Understood?"

"You know, I still don't know how to dance."

"I'll find James, bring him with me. We'll show you how. Just be there."

"We'll have the band play something slow."

The last thing Steve Rogers hears for a very long time is Peggy's voice, faintly, beneath the scream of metal as the plane smashes nose-first into the ice.


	3. Entr'acte: Peggy Carter

Peggy Carter no longer loves flying the way she used to. Too many of her best and worst memories happened in and around aeroplanes, and where she'll step off the flight in Los Angeles looking utterly unflustered she's more or less private now. At least, no one will disturb her until they're getting ready to land. So she can let herself remember.

She's stripped off her gloves and is studying the dark purple marks on her fingertips. The ones that used to be red, but have slowly taken on this odd cast, as though they're frostbitten.

_Bucky's still alive, Peggy._

Something squeezes in her chest and she tightens her lips. She saw what Steve had gone through trying to convince someone to listen to him about James. She remembered the pain it caused him, that she was the only one who believed him. That they both had responsibilities keeping them from going up into those mountains and finding James, or finding his body. 

Either, she knows now, would be better than this half-knowing. Than trying to keep faith in the face of everyone else's doubts.

Almost everyone else.

She curls her fingers, pressing the marked tips into the heel of her palm, as though her body heat could be enough to warm them and by extension warm the man bearing her marks in return. Warm him, and bring him back to her.

She wills Howard—who managed to find a tiny bloody cube in all that bloody water under all that bloody ice—to find Steve. And bring him _home_.

But she wastes no energy on hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my beta, shinychimera.


	4. Entr'acte: Natalia Romanova

"Again."

Natalia pulls herself up from the thin wrestling mat, looks at the impassive machine across from her. Tries to figure what she had done wrong that time.

_He has reach. You have speed, but so does he. You cannot see his eyes but that should not matter. Many times you will not be able to see a target's eyes._

She cannot see anything of his face beneath the heavy goggles, the muzzling shield. He is relaxed, or, no. He seems relaxed, but he knows she is coming. She can feel his cold regard, the way everything in the room became a thousand degrees cooler the moment he walked in. The fierce light off the metal of his prosthetic arm. 

A few moments before, when she had been laying on her back _again_ , the Red Room's brightest just-beyond-pupil but not full agent laid out flat _again_ by the man-machine in front of her, he'd offered a soft promise from behind the mask.

"Take me down," he said in flawless Russian, voice rough but not unpleasant, far less menacing than she'd expected, "and you may have my name."

She'd stared into the impassive black covering everything about him that might have been expressive, catching her breath and wondering how he'd known what she wanted. A name would make the man, her potential trainer, this machine, more human. A fairy tale, come to life; the wizard's name and the maiden holding the power of it in her mind.

She has not managed to so much as budge him, but for one solid kick into his gut. She'd earned a grunt, and a half-step backward.

So what is she missing?

She needs the element of surprise, but she cannot gain it. She cannot seduce him. She cannot goad him into attacking first.

His unseen eyes are not the only eyes on her. The thought crosses her mind: _They are using you to find his hidden weaknesses._

She considers him. She has not been holding back, not with her physical self, but she has not used all the weapons at her disposal. She has not brought out her sting.

And the arm must contain _some_ form of electronics.

She shifts out of her defensive pose, out of any combat pose at all, and begins walking toward him as though she plans seduction; looking at the mask, the muzzle, in lieu of looking him in the eyes. Swaying her hips.

_They want to perfect him. They want to perfect you. Two weapons, honed beyond the razor's edge. Monofilament._

So. All right. The one thing she hadn't tried and shouldn't expect to work.

She looked up at him through lowered lashes, one hand curled around a sting in her pants pocket, provocatively exposing a flash of stomach. His body language had shifted, too—still wary, but the line of his shoulders slightly more relaxed. Only slightly. Enough for her to read the drag of the prosthetic on his neck, his spine. She took one more step, bringing herself within striking range.

And then let surprise cross her face in the moment before her eyes rolled back in her head and she let herself collapse, bonelessly.

It works, enough; her counterpart reaches out to catch her before she can hit the mat. She slaps the sting onto his arm, punching his chest with her free hand. Twists, pulling away from the metal before it can conduct to her as well; feels only the faintest jolting burr through her shoulder where his other arm grips her. The prosthetic goes limp, dragging him sideways. He'd put himself off-balance by leaning forward so she uses that momentum and the weight of the arm to flip him so he lands on his back with her garotte around his neck beneath the edge of the mask.

At the last possible moment he brought his right hand between strand and throat, but she's got her knee at the base of his sternum and her weight bears down on that vulnerable point while her hands twist tighter. The action tugs the fingerless glove he wears down, and she catches the faintest flash of iced-over blue at the second joint of his fingers; a cold jolt briefly loosening her hands despite herself. 

Petrovich's icy "Enough." rings through the room.

She immediately releases him, shifts her weight back onto her heels and rises to her feet, alert; Petrovich is not his handler and he has not been called off. She is not safe, not yet, though there are lines in her opponent's forehead that were not there when they began, lines that might be a frown or a grimace, anger or pain.

Freed, he rises; reaches over to pull the sting from his arm. Considers it, she thinks, then tosses it to the German, who pockets it. He sways a bit toward her, the solidity of his stride hindered. It looks accidental.

"Stand down," he is ordered, the Russian heavily accented with the west, and he draws himself back as straight as he can manage with some higher number of kilos of dead weight than he is used to hanging from his left side.

She is certain she is the only one who heard his murmured "Yakov." 

She flicks a glance toward the goggles again; his chin lowers the smallest fraction. Acknowledgment. A secret, given as promised. A secret, he trusts she will keep.

A second secret, one she does not think he realized she saw. That someone once loved him enough to give him a piece of their soul. When he was a child, perhaps, if people like them were ever children.

Interesting.

*****

They train together for six months, ostensibly Yakov teaching Natalia under the watchful eyes of Petrovich. He never speaks to her, while he's learning to dance, to catch her and spin her, to stand absolutely still while she climbs all over him, uses him as a launching pad or he hooks flesh and metal fingers to flip her farther than she could jump on her own. Not a word while she refines herself under his steady hands, learning the precise points that will bring even a man like him or a woman like her to their knees. Ways to kill and maim and dance with a knife as if it were her partner, the two of them making their way down the floor, side by side, knives flipping and jabbing in sync.

She knows his body better than she would know a sexual partner's, except that she has never seen his eyes.

Neither of them is gentle. The only command she has from Petrovich is not to kill him when they spar; she makes no assumption Yakov has the same restriction.

Six months, and she knows his name and the strength in his body, more unnatural than her own. She has no history, she is the Black Widow and Yasha, she has learned by the simple expedient of listening at supper, is the Winter Soldier. He is Russian, she thinks but cannot be certain.

Six months, autumn through winter. She knows he has slipped into her room several times but neither of them have broken the silence. She was not afraid of him in the dark. 

She is not afraid of him when her thin mattress sinks because he has sat down on it.

She sits up, pushes herself so her back is against the wall at the head of her bed, and studies the impassive mask made of his face by the goggles and the muzzle. They sit, quietly, until she is sure he will not proceed.

So she rocks forward, reaches up not to the goggles first, but the muzzle. Pauses with her fingers resting on the first of the buckles. He's almost too still to be human.

"Yasha?" she says, keeping her voice level. There is danger here, but there is danger everywhere.

His chin lowers again, the tiniest inclination but enough to be read as a nod and she swiftly undoes the mask, sets it carefully aside on her pillow. Runs her fingers over his generous mouth. Feels the breath ghosting into and out of his nose. 

_Petrovich will kill us both_ , she thinks, _but this is not a seduction_. She carefully pulls off the goggles. Even the dim light on the table beside her bed is enough to make him squint, long dark lashes against pale skin and the red marks left behind by his gear.

She sets the goggles down next to the mask. He blinks at her. She leans back against the wall again, studying his face. He's handsome enough. She can't really tell, in the light, but she thinks his eyes are blue. He has high cheekbones. He might have laughed much, once, though those lines might be leftover from the goggles and mask. He is very pale, paler even than she is.

He continues to sit quietly under her gaze. If they were any two other people, she suspects it would be unnerving.

She sits forward again, takes his warm flesh-and-blood hand into her own, reaches down to undo the snap of the glove at his wrist. He twitches, and she looks back up into his face. Tilts her head, studying his eyes, and shifts forward to sit cross-legged. Places his hand, palm up and still in the glove, on her ankles.

"Show me." She makes her statement a question, soft, not a demand, hard. He shakes his head, as small a gesture as the nod had been. She waits. She has been trained to patience; a necessary thing.

And in the end, he does not ask her why. His shoulders droop, and curl inward, when he reaches across his body, and removes the glove so she can see. And he looks away when she picks up his hand again, to study the play of faded colors beneath the skin. Looks down. Ashamed.

It is at once beautiful and horrible, as these things are, though so very faded up close she is surprised she noticed it in the first place. She pushes up his sleeve, pursuing blue, purple, a once deep red she thinks must have been almost black when the gift was first given. Almost like a bruise; she half-expects to find the greens and yellows of healing.

He clears his throat, tugs his shirt down to cover as much as he can from her gaze. "A wound that will not heal but carries no pain. A glitch. A technical flaw. One that will be resolved soon enough."

She regards him, a little surprised. Such a great gift, the possibility to live _dusha v dushe_ is important enough she remembers what such a mark means even though she remembers so little of her time before the Room. Important, but an unnecessary vulnerability for her. For them.

"Love is for children, Yasha," she says. Petrovich said it to her, in the rare dark nights when she remembered Alexei with pain instead of calm resolve.

He looks back at her, automatically tossing too-long hair out of his eyes.

"Machines do not love, Natalia," he says, tugging his shirt down to cover as much as he can from her gaze. But he does not pull his hand away from hers.

"Natasha." He's letting her use the diminutive for his name, she can do no less for him. And despite what she might have thought when they were first placed against each other, the man in front of her is no machine.

He gives that small, nearly motionless nod again. Her lips purse. They will both be punished if what she is about to do works. She thinks it might be worth it.

She sets his hand back down on her ankles, then presses their palms together. Takes a deep breath and tries to remember children's stories. Yasha is frowning at her, eyebrows drawn together and the corners of his mouth turned down, but his eyes are not hard.

 _I wish to give Yasha some of my soul's strength, though we cannot bond and it will not last. But maybe they will believe 'the flaw' has finally left him when there is no lingering mark on my skin to match his. Just a small piece, a piece I can spare for a time._

She does not believe in god, is not praying; just hoping to find the right words to work a spell. Nothing happens, at first, and she looks up into Yasha's face and gives him a small smile. He does not respond, instead staring at their joined hands. Nothing will happen at all if she is mistaken about her concern for him.

_He needs the strength more than I._

"Natasha," he starts, stopping abruptly at the moment a soft swirl of warmth crawls from her chest along her body out to their joined hands, halting her in place. The places where they touch heat and cool and she finally takes her hand away.

On his palm, nearly covering faded blue, is the mark of her own hand in stark black, with thin threads of red throughout. She brings his hand up to her face again, studying it, then shows him her own.

Not a single mark mars her palm, not even a deepening of the color of the lines. She had given to him, but he had not reciprocated. The child Natalia would have been heartbroken. The Widow does not care.

He draws in a sharp breath, as though she had slid a knife between his ribs.

"They will take me away," he says.

"They were going to, anyway," she answers. "Or you would not have come tonight. We are ready to resume the work they have for us."

Again, that tiniest of nods.

She leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth. "Thank you, Yasha. For all you have taught me. Now go, you've been gone too long."

She waits until he has been gone for fifty slow breaths to rise from her own bed and dress, careful to select boots that cover the tiny red mark on the point of her ankle; incidental, and liable to be gone in the morning. 

Settles on the foot of her bed to wait for Petrovich to come to her and demand an explanation. To learn if he will punish her for this potentially careless action.

*****

Natasha curses when a clean shot pierces a tire, tearing the steering wheel from her control: the flat tire at speed throws the car into a spin and then off the road. They tumble, roll; come to rest on the passenger side of the car.

Rattled, and running on instinct and adrenaline, she checks on her package. He nods his awareness despite the blood dripping from his forehead. Natasha squirms herself up, out of the car; a risk, unavoidable. She scans the area, feels eyes on them but sees nothing. Still atop the car, vulnerable, she reaches in to pull the package up to her, clear of the wreck, sheltering him as much as possible with her own body.

The package folds, the back of his head completely missing; she starts to spin, to find the shooter but as soon as she moves she feels the pain spreading from just above her hip. Shot. Shot through, to reach the package.

She manages to drop off the side of the vehicle before her legs go out from under her. She can hear her own ragged breathing, boots on gravel, viscous liquid trickling. Fights to get back up, but between wreck and shot she has already lost too much blood.

The boots have drawn closer. A soft command. An almost-familiar, muffled, voice. Only one pair of boots proceed. She forces consciousness; black-clad legs pass her, then pause at the car.

Two unnecessary shots. She's sure they're very precise.

The legs return; their owner crouches down. She struggles to bring her arm into contact with boot or ankle or anything that will allow her to sting the man who shot her. He puts the barrel of the pistol against her cheek and turns her head to look up at him.

Blackness. Goggles. Dark hair falling around the masking equipment. The cold metal against her temple. 

"Yash—" she tries, and coughs up blood. "Yasha."

He looks back up the hill. Straightens, kicks her hand away, and walks calmly back to the rest of his team. She doesn't know if she's hearing the throbbing of her heart or the soft whup-whup of distant rotor blades. Either way, she knows Yasha will be long gone by the time the extraction team she called when the car went over arrives.

One's ghosts should never be so solid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to my beta, Shinychimera.
> 
> Back to Bucky's POV next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

There is cold. _(There is always cold.)_ There is pain. _(There is always pain.)_ But _that_ flare of pain is unacceptable, careless, not intentional, and triggers rage. One of the men prodding at the fleshy stump beneath Yasha's prosthetic arm flies across the room. Yasha feels brittle satisfaction at the crack and crumple of the body against the machinery. He should be afraid. Order through pain. Defiance is contrary to order. Defiance brings pain. 

He is reminded, forcibly, that his body is not his own. That damage to the scientists maintaining his corpus is unacceptable. And he is restored to order under Pierce's disappointment and the white haze of electricity. But not returned to the ice, not this time. 

Too much to be done to bring about peace and order. Too many cards in play to freeze Yasha with his malchromatic hand and his occasional tiny rebellions out of the game.

****

There is a target. There are always targets. That is Yasha's purpose, his higher calling. The reason he still lives. This target is cannier than most and survives the first attempt. The assassin considers what was in the file. Where the target is liable to go.

He finds the target without assistance, before their radioman locates him via the target's own bug. Waits patiently for the other man in the room, the one the target is trying to warn, to step aside. No collateral damage, this time. An order. There is chaos and there is chaos, and he had caused too much unauthorized mayhem on the road earlier in the day. Largely because the target refused to go quietly.

Even now, life burbling out of him, he is still talking.

Shot taken, Yasha holsters his weapon and waits to hear the voice go silent, no wheezing breaths, before setting off back toward base point, to report in. Radio silence, not optional, after probable mission close. 

"Probable" bothers him, but in this instance is unavoidable if he is to obey orders and remain unseen. Too many untrustworthy agents in the complex. He hears the smash of glass, glances back, realizes the not-target _(male, blonde, tall, muscular, something else…)_ from the apartment is in pursuit. 

In pursuit, _fast_ , and more familiar with the territory. And also somewhat clumsy, if the occasional shaking of the building is to be believed. 

Yasha almost clears the roof before the man breaks through the door, metal on glass, and he hears a soft grunt and swings back around, bringing up his metal arm to catch —

— a shield.

He pauses. Looks coldly at the man over the top of his mask _(infrared goggles for night time work but there is plenty of light here and he must disappear into the world when the mission is done until he reports in)_. Ignores the sudden twinge in the palm of his other hand and shifts his grip to throw the shield back at its bearer.

The other man will catch it or he will not, but Yasha doesn't wait, just clears the roof and chooses the best path of disappearance. Back toward the building he'd just jumped from, into its shadows and down through an alley. Chalking the tingle in his hand and stutter in his chest up to adrenaline, his body doing as it is biologically programmed to do.

He walks, now. Running will only draw attention.

****

He is calm. He is fed. Mission success confirmed. There is still cold and pain. Constants. They are soothing.

His hand itches, something under the malcoloration. Like healing. He bears the pain because it is only pain.

There is a call. A weapon, re-aimed. A target, re-drawn.

****

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

A question unanswered because the need for flight trumps the need for knowledge, no matter how magnetic the man who is his mission has become.

****

Pain, but not the right pain, a pain of his own making digs through his gut and beneath the skin of his hand and wrist and he does not _understand_ because he does not _remember_. He is not in control, there is no order, no discipline, just a whirlwind shape of not-quite-there and almost-but-maybe and the sudden unbridled desire to _break free_. He should be somewhere else. He should be _someone_ else.

He knew the man on the bridge, and knowing has upended all the order in the world.

Consciously remembering, when possible, is still forbidden. Disorderly. What he dreams when he is in the ice, when he sleeps, those things are also disorderly but the product of his disordered subconscious and unworthy of attention.

The arm is repaired and the needle is in his hand but they are still _touching_ him. He acts, forcefully, and they leave him to sit in the chair, hands on his thighs. Waiting. Remembering. Feeling some familiar/unfamiliar burn in the discoloration under his hand. Coiling, like muscle. Like a snake. Burning, like fire. Like a spark jumping between hands. A cry and a shout. Something patient, and old. 

The blow to his face rocks him nearly out of the chair, the needle shifting painfully in his vein. The demand for a mission report. 

His response is answer and confession. He barely hears Pierce's speech about his importance, about the tipping point. For the first time in what must be a very long time, he cannot stop knowing what he knows.

The order for a wipe is expected. He wets his lips, accepts the mouth guard and the pain and the warm surge of liquid up the needle into his vein but this time he does not accept forgetting.

****

"Then finish it. 'Cause I am with you…'til the end of the line."

Yasha freezes, metal arm raised to strike another blow. The words sink through him, draw from his ears down to the flesh-and-bone hand pressing hard into the target's shoulder— _he calls you Bucky_ —and two memories crash into each other: the same hand on the same shoulder but gripping not pushing down; the same words but in Yasha's often-forgotten voice; and the burn of indescribable fire starting at his shoulder, searing through his fingertips as he stretched out to the man now beneath him. A handhold giving way.

Something—an echo of fire?—slams its way back up his body from their point of contact, from the throbbing center of his mismarked hand and he feels his eyes widen.

_Steve_. He knew him. He _had_ known him most of his life, the life before, the forbidden past.

Before he can unlock his muscles enough to move or grip or run, the glass beneath them shatters and Steve — his mission — falls away into the debris-laden Potomac below.

He hangs for a minute by the grace of his metal arm, but the 'carrier is about to go down and he can't — 

_'Til the end of the line._

He lets go. 

****

He drags Steve — his mission — his friend? — out of the water, metal hand wrapped in the strap of his shield harness onto the riverside. Pauses, a moment, looking down at him, flexing his fingers into the heel of his palm while he waits for Steve to cough up water and breathe. Dredging his mind, like they'll have to dredge the Potomac for Steve's shield.

He remembers...something. Less clear, now, than before this latest fall. Reaching out, hand not quite to hand, power running through him. Through them?

Something. Not enough.

Without contact, he still almost remembers Steve. 

He scans the river, across to the smoking Triskelion and the collapsing helicarriers. Mission failure. Lie low for twelve hours then return to base.

He looks down at Steve again, flesh hand shaping into a fist. 

Sensible advice, regardless. But the return will be on his own terms. His former masters won't like the result. They can't give him back everything they stole from him, everything he feels complicit in losing. But they can give him a better starting place than the fuzzy electricity-limned almost-memories he has now.

_Indescribable burn...breathing wild and shallow...kindling fire? Old magic?_ He doesn't know what any of it means, shuts down, limps off into the scant vegetation. Contemplates the best places in DC to remain unseen. His body's hurts are already healing. He can feel the lightness left behind by his absent weaponry, the weight of abandonment.

Walking away from Steve Rogers hurts more than any fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, much love and gratitude to my beta, shinychimera.
> 
> Thanks for all the patience and kudos; I'm still not sure whether I'm going to go off-book and avoid Civil War or not so the next chapter may take a bit longer for me to finish but I _do_ have an end point in mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [bushy-barnes](http://bushy-barnes.tumblr.com/) and shinychimera for beta.
> 
> Comments and kudos are love.
> 
> I realized when I re-read this yesterday that it's complete in and of itself.
> 
> I do have plans to take Steve and Bucky through CA:TWS but it's not written yet.


End file.
